Our Goober Has Moved the Goal Posts Again

Let me start by saying that when I wrote at the end of my previous post that I would "henceforth be ignoring everything I can with regard to this insanity [the Goobers policies for CoViD] and just live my life as a peaceful example of civil disobedience to it" I really did mean it.  And I tried.  But the stuff that has happened in the last few days have pushed me over the edge and I have to either vent here, or seriously risk pissing off Mrs. Ohioan due to my frustration.  So here goes a good vent...

Our Goober has made the location of the goal posts fluid and uncontrollable.  Actually they have become so idiotic and convoluted that based on the explanations I've seen (admittedly filtered through former journalism majors), I simply can not say that I understand them sufficiently that I could actually calculate them.  Hey, I've got a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry, published peer reviewed articles in a bunch of physics journals, and taught myself the mathematics of General Relativity for fun, but clearly I should have known that this is just so complicated that I probably shouldn't have expected to be able to understand it.  Right?  Anyways here's the latest...

Not only are we working towards two metrics, wherein our county ends up in one of four colors, which define the extent of the reopening we can do, but now they are 'adjusting' our metrics based on Statewide metrics.  These adjustments are done in the following way (so far as I can determine).  If on a given day the number of tests are below the Statewide average (apparently based on the number of tests divided by the county population, but don't quote me on that), then they add more positive case results to make up for the ones you would have measured, if you'd actually tested at the Statewide average testing rate.  Now they don't say how many of those tests are assumed to be positive (it could be the rate the county reported, it could be the average rate across the State, or it could be just about anything).  I must say that there is no Scientific reason¹ to do this.  I should also note that they also reduce the numbers if you tested more than the average, so the whole thing is just crazy.  It is, of course, impossible to ensure that we test the average number, since there is no way to know how many tests are being given on any given day in the entire rest of the state (or what day the result will be assigned to, see next paragraph).    How many cases might these 'additional', though purely imaginary, cases be?  And if the county numbers are inflated or reduced, do they then use these fictional numbers as the State numbers?  Do they then get passed to the National numbers?  Do they realize that if you add an imaginary number to a real number you get a complex number?    

Leaving aside questions of which basis one must use to express the "adjusted" data, according to this, the tests are NOT assigned to the date they are reported or the date the test was taken.  Nope, they are assigned to the "episode date".  This is defined as the date the person being tested "began feeling symptoms of COVID-19".²  Since the assigned date will always be in the past, what they are doing is actually changing the data for past dates.  Because of this, the weekly average of cases per 100,000 is actually computed over a 7 day period, ending 7 days ago, and only looked at every Tuesday.  So if I understand this, next Tuesday (September 15, 2020) San Diego County will report a new average rate per 100,000, for the cases assigned to the period September 2 - 8, and then the State will adjust it, by adding imaginary positive cases, for those dates where the number of tests in our county were below the Statewide average number of tests, and subtracting 'real' cases if you've tested over the average.  I'd also mention that the adjustment factors mean that no county will really be measured by its numbers, but rather by some manically fudged numbers.  It reminds of the old saw "figures don't lie, but liars can figure".   I feel compelled to note that the Goober said this new system would be "Simple".  I would suggest that this is an epic fail at "Simple".

And yet as Byzantine as all this is, it still isn't the worst of it.  This entire Rube Goldberg process is ignoring a very key fact.  THE TESTS ARE NOT PERFECT.  Does the Goober and his crack team (crackhead team?) recall the story from late August about the 77 NFL players testing positive and then all of them retesting negative (here)? Or the story from early August about the Ohio Governor seeing the same 'first positive, then negative' (here)?  One should ask, are we retesting everyone to help ensure that a positive result is really a positive?  Even if we are (we aren't!) we should also take heed of the story from, that bastion of lefty politics, the New York Times which points out that even the PCR test (which really should be nearly fool proof) is not proof against improper procedures and may have been reporting nearly 10 times too many positives.³  Given false positives there is some lowest practical 'positivity rate' that can be achieved.  What precisely this is depends on the accuracy of the test, the quality of the sample, and the professionalism of the laboratory and its personnel.  In the end, we can't know what that is, but it does mean that a rate of 0 is simply impossible, and progress at reducing the positives must eventually run into a minimum percentage. 

Finally, I have to bring up that the positive test results in San Diego County is also being significantly impacted by the students who've returned to San Diego State University.  Since August, and particularly in the last week, the number of students testing positive have spiked (they got back to campus and had some parties, so, surprise, some of them got sick).  As an example of the impact it has had on our county, the positive tests per day per 100,000 for this last week jumped from 5.8 to 6.9 (and if it gets over 7, we go from Red to Purple - which is the worst color).  Looking at the weekly data (which I only have by date reported) this past week had an increase of about 350 cases over the previous week.  In that time period SDSU reported almost 300 cases.  When you look at the County break down by age groups, the groups from 10-30 account for a rise of about 400, with the rest of the age groups showing a total decline of about 50 (and none of those age groups show any significant increases).  So while SDSU by itself doesn't seem to account for the total increase in the 10-30 age group, it wouldn't be surprising if in fact the parties plus other secondary spread in the college age groups from students to non-students would be more than adequate to explain the increase.  So should San Diego County be re-re-closed (that's what it would be) due to the case rise in these age groups?  If so, we would be closed due to cases (even if real) in the demographics we should be nearly completely unconcerned about.⁴

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1 - But there is plenty of Political reason to make these adjustments.  If you remember from my post of August 27, good old Goober Nuisance decided not to follow CDC guidance that we should only be testing symptomatic people.  Well one way he can ensure the counties don't decide to follow that guidance is to penalize any county that is, in his opinion, under testing.  And there is no better way to punish them than to continue to strangle their economy.  Q.E.D. 

2 - This makes me wonder if we are testing people who don't have symptoms (as per the first footnote) how does one assign a positive result to a date where they began to feel symptoms?  How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  And speaking of pin-heads, does our Goober realize how absurd this is?  Does he realize how absolutely inconsistent he's being?  Does he care?  (That last question was rhetorical.)

3 - As an analytical chemist I am appalled by the report that labs have been over amplifying the PCR tests.  This is, in my opinion, absolutely such that any lab that did this should be stripped of any all certifications they currently hold and the individuals responsible should have their employment and certifications terminated. 

4 - And as this demographic distribution has been the core of my argument against the re-closing (let alone a re-re-closing), I state (but will not show my work) that with respect to the deaths and my predictions for them (versus what our Goober seems to tolerate - as per a bunch of previous posts), that the shutout continues and is currently a score of Goober Nuisance: 0, Me: 9.

Wow! My Previous Post Was Prescient

Today our moronic Goober finally released his reopening plan for counties as they get off his "Watchlist".  Well, sort of.  See he just completely dumped his Watchlist (worthless thing that it always was) and has shifted the state to a four (4) tier system based on colors.  The colors are purple, red, orange, and yellow.  So let me ask you... which is worst?  Red?  Nope, Purple.  Why? I don't know, and he's on third (sorry an inside joke for lovers of Abbott and Costello).  

Anyways let's just say that this clears everything up [I can't figure out how to type that sarcastically, so just hear it in your head that way].  It is still a morass.  So let's say I run a Gym.  What can I do?  After spending quite a bit of time hunting around I was able to find one decent website (here) that sorta let's you know.  Type in your county and then select the business type.  Click the 'Get Latest Status' button and then all you have to do is scan through the entire list of counties to see what applies to San Diego.  Turns out that if you enter the Business first, then enter the county (which is to the left of the business) then you only see the result for San Diego county.  Yes, that's very unintuitive - but very California, where everything is backward.  So to answer my previous question as an example: for San Diego (red = "Substantial Risk") Gyms can have 10% of their normal capacity indoors and presumably as much outdoors as they can handle.

One might wonder how does a county move up or down in the risk levels from worst = purple = "Widespread", to red = "Substantial", to orange = "Moderate", to the best = yellow = "Minimal"?  Well here is the explanation:

"Every county in California is assigned to a tier based on its rate of new cases and positivity. At a minimum, counties must remain in a tier for at least 3 weeks before moving forward. Data is reviewed weekly and tiers are updated on Tuesdays. To move forward, a county must meet the next tier’s criteria for two consecutive weeks. If a county’s metrics worsen for two consecutive weeks, it will be assigned a more restrictive tier. Public health officials are constantly monitoring data and can step in if necessary."

That's clear, right?  To clarify a bit, the metrics currently for San County are that the new cases are 5.8 cases per day per 100,000 people and a test 'positivity' rate of 3.7%.  Those are actually in the ranges for red and orange respectively, but you get the higher tier, so SD County is red.

It is of note that the Goober's justification for this system is that it is Statewide, Simple, Slow, and Stringent.  I'd argue that it is also Stupid, Silly, Sucky, Strained, Serpentine, and Severe.  But so what?  It is a convoluted and complicated set of rules that absolves everyone from thinking, without one iota of reasoning behind the various rules as to what can happen under the various tiers.  Sorry Gruesome Newsom, but if this is the best you and your advisors can up with after more than 7 weeks, I think this just shows, yet again, that you are a small minded petty tyrant who wants to destroy California.

I will henceforth be ignoring everything I can with regard to this insanity and just live my life as a peaceful example of civil disobedience to it.

Goober Newsom: True Colors On Display

Our Goober has repeatedly said that we need to follow the science and listen to the experts, or words of that nature (for example see Politico here or CNN here).  So has none other than Democrat Presidential candidate Biden who said, with respect to a national CoViD lockdown, "I would shut it down. ... I would listen to the scientists." Clearly these are supposed to be the right thing to do.  So yesterday the CDC provided new guidance on CoViD-19 testing.  And our Goober's response was exactly what you'd expect from his previous statements.  He said

“I DON’T AGREE WITH THE NEW CDC GUIDANCE PERIOD, FULL STOP, AND IT’S NOT THE POLICY IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. WE WILL NOT BE INFLUENCED BY THAT CHANGE. WE’RE INFLUENCED BY THOSE THAT ARE EXPERTS IN THE FIELD THAT FEEL VERY DIFFERENTLY. THAT IS NOT THE POLICY GUIDELINE THAT WE WILL EMBRACE OR ADOPT HERE IN CALIFORNIA"

Now please pardon me, but that does not seem to indicate that he will follow this science.  Rather it seems to indicate he will, at best, listen to the scientists that he agrees with (or is it the ones that agree with him?).

Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, our wonderful Goober said (on Monday August 24) that he will release the reopening plan for when a county gets off his Watchlist, "later this week".  He's down to today and tomorrow to make his own deadline.  And it isn't just San Diego county that's in Newsom's CoViD limbo.  There are 8 counties that are stuck this way.  Clearly, he does not want the citizens of California to be in charge of their own lives, and does not want any chance for the economy to rebound.  He really needs to be defied (in peaceful civil disobedience) and recalled.

  

The Shutout Continues - It's Like the Goober Doesn't Even Care

First the obligatory update to the score of me and the Goober.  Last week I predicted 31 deaths in San Diego County from CoViD-19 for the week ending August 22.  The final total was 34.  That's off by all of 10%.  The result of 34 observed deaths per week works out to about 1.02 deaths per week per 100,000 for San Diego County.  The Goober appeared to be willing to tolerate about 7 deaths per week per 100,000.  This works out to a prediction of above 230 deaths per week in SD County - and would use our current rate of about 80 cases per week per 100,000 to predict 186 deaths for the week, which is off by 447%.  I would argue that my prediction is way more than just a bit better than the Goober's.  So the new score is Goober Newsom: 0, Me: 7.  My prediction for the week ending August 29 is 34 (updated table at bottom of post).

But really the Goober doesn't care about any of all that.  I say this because our death totals are way below what we should be willing to tolerate according to the Goober, and we've been off the "Watch List" for almost a full week (and should have been off for almost two weeks), you'd think we'd know what we can now do, that had been curtailed when we went on the list.  But, Noooo.  Our Goober simply refuses to to tell us what we can or can't do.  And like the obedient little pawns that they are, all our local politicians seem willing to meekly wait for the Goober to do what he should have done over 50 days ago.  I am waiting for one of politicians to take the bull by the horns and say, 'Obviously we can just go back to where we were before we got on the list.' 

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Table 1.  Predictions and results through last week (week ending  08/22/2020) and my prediction for this week.

Week Ending	Prediction	Observed
7/04/2020	54	27
7/11/2020	49	35
7/18/2020	61	56
7/25/2020	51	55
8/01/2020	53	32
8/08/2020	44	29
8/15/2020	45	32
8/22/2020	31	34
8/29/2020	34	??

A (Late) Update

It has been two weeks since my last update, so I have to do two predictions (even though one is somewhat of a 'trust me' nature), and perhaps I should explain why it is late.  I didn't do an update last week because I was on a vacation, with Mrs. Ohioan and one of our sons, his wife, and their two kids.  I know that our Goober would have a complete melt down over such a 'reckless' action, but I believe in the data and my analysis thereof.  Anyways, we spent last weekend and the early part of the week in a small town in the northern part of Kern County, CA.  We spent a lot of time hiking or lounging in the (cold!) Kern River, just the six of us, while only rarely getting anywhere near anyone else.  It is a beautiful area.  The images below show the view upriver from a spot north of Kernville.  If you can cross your eyes to make three images, and keep your focus on the center image, there should be a fairly decent 3-Dimensional image.  The second image is from the Trail of 100 Giants (which is an hour more north in the Sequoia National Forest).  It lacks scale, so I will simply say, it is one big mother of a tree...

A view up the Kern River.

A Sequoia Tree on the Trail of 100 Giants, Sequoia National Forest.

Now that the travel log is done, back to the serious business of updating the score.

As of the last post I had left a prediction of 44 deaths for the week ending August 8.  The final total was 29.  Had I been at home I would have then predicted that the total deaths for the week ending August 15 would have been 45.  The actual total was 32.  So that's two more for me, with the shutout continuing.  The score is now Goober Newsom: 0, Me: 6.  The prediction for next week (ending August 22) is 31.  The full scoreboard is in the table at the bottom of the post.

In another happening, that further shows how much our Goober is playing at being a petty tyrant who wants to destroy our economy and control our lives (puny things he considers them to be), San Diego county has reduced our case rate to below the level where we should have come off the Goober's "Watch List" as of this past Friday.  So have we been allowed to reopen all the business that were closed, or forced outside, when we got on the Watch List?  Of course not.  Why?  Because while they had defined the requirement to get off the list, the Goober never indicated what would happen when that happened.  Further, when we hit that point, the Goober's office refused to remove San Diego County, while they 'review' the data (note: no such review was necessary when they put us on the list, they trusted our data then, but not now - convenient, isn't it?).  

Here is a case where I am now furious with our mayor.  We know we are (should be) off the list.  The Goober has not defined what happens now.  What did the mayor do?  He wrote a letter asking what's next.  Insane.  I mean, seriously, he's had 40 days to define the exit strategy, and didn't, so why ask this waste of skin what he wants?  That's just playing into letting him control us even more.  Stop asking for permission, take advantage of the vacuum!  Tell the Goober, 'you screwed up by not defining what happens, so we will.  In as much as a bunch of stuff happened when we went on the list, so now that we are off it, all that stuff ends.'  Done.

One last semi-rant.  So the champion of the Democrat Party tells us that he'd order all of us to wear masks for three months (which would piss everybody off from now until... oh, how about that? ...until the election).  But don't worry he said “ 'It’s not about your rights,' ”.  I have a simple rule.  When someone says "it's not about the money", it is about the money.  Same thing here.  It is nice to know that the same people who support the rioter's, uhm... looter's, uhm... protester's, yeah, that's it, protester's right to assemble during a pandemic don't care about the rights of other people to choose.  Unless it is a woman's right to choose.  And they believe all women.  Unless what the women are saying is against one of their guys - right Kamela?  Finally, if anyone is doubting Biden's mental decline, go watch the section from 0:50-2:15 in this.  The Biden of 2008?  Him, I could actually vote for.  I can't vote for 2020's Biden.  And as a Californian (and an Ohioan@Heart) I really can't vote for Kamela.  For anything.  Ever.

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Table 1.  Predictions and results through last week (week ending  08/15/2020) and my prediction for this week.

Week Ending	Prediction	Observed
7/04/2020	54	27
7/11/2020	49	35
7/18/2020	61	56
7/25/2020	51	55
8/01/2020	53	32
8/08/2020	44	29
8/15/2020	45	32
8/22/2020	31	??

Just a Quick Scoring Update

Recap:

As of last week the score was Goober Newsom: 0, Me: 3.

Update:

I have updated the table from last week to reflect the results for last prediction and to include my next prediction.  So let me remind you why the deaths have not gone up sharply even though the cases have.  It is simply because the cases have shifted away from the oldest (and most vulnerable) to the youngest (and least vulnerable).  Just to give a comparison, prior to when our Goober set his metrics, the profile was that 0-40 year olds were about 36% of the cases, 40-50 year olds were about 37%, and 60+ were the remaining 27% (but that last group was responsible for nearly 90% of the deaths).  From June 6 through today the case percentages are 60%, 27%, and 13%, respectively.  Further, the death rates are simply lower today than they were early on (I can't say why with any certainty, but with the great increase in tracing and testing we are undoubtedly identifying many asymptomatic - or nearly asymptomatic - cases that would not have been identified earlier, and I suspect that the treatments are also improving).  By the way, even with the massive reduction in the percentage of cases over 60, that age group still represents around 85% of the total deaths.  So keeping that group from getting the disease is still the most important thing we can do to keep the deaths down.

Anyways, even though my predictions are not great, they are reliable enough to have confidence that, so long as the demographic distribution for the new cases remains dominated by those under 40, and the total cases over 60 stays under control, there is simply no reason to keep San Diego County under the Goobers Thumb, err, I mean under the Goober's Watch List.

Oh, and just to actually do a scoring update, the score is now Goober Newsom: 0, Me: 4.  Let the shut out continue.

One short somewhat related rant:

So our Goober has also decided that as long as we are on his Watch List, schools can not reopen for in person classes until we get under the watch list conditions, and stay there for two consecutive 14 day periods.  This despite the fact that to get on the Watch List only required to miss the mark over one 14 day period, and to continue to fail for two more consecutive days.  So it is easier to get on the list than off (since he wants to control our lives!).  Also, and let's be clear here, the real reason he wants the schools closed is because the teacher's unions want that.  See they will get paid, whether they are in the class room, or at home.  The fact is that some families, who have two working parents, have great difficulty with distance learning.  But the teachers unions don't care about them or their kids, and the Democratic politicians only care that they keep getting all those tax dollars to campaign with (legally laundered through the teacher's unions, of course).  

And for the coup de grace, our wonderful, oh-so-caring, Goober will not suspend the highly contentious AB5 independent contractor rules for those parents (and groups of parents) that want to hire tutors to help get their kids through the forced online instruction (I typed learning, but given the reports on the utter failure that online 'learning' was shown to be by the end of last school year, I decided that I couldn't really use that word).

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Table 1.  Predictions and results through last week (week ending  08/01/2020) and my prediction for this week.

Week Ending	New Prediction	Observed
7/04/2020	54	27
7/11/2020	49	35
7/18/2020	61	56
7/25/2020	51	55
8/01/2020	53	32
8/08/2020	44	??

An Update/Follow-on To My Last Post...

What Happened:

Yesterday, was day 24 of the great California re-closing of 2020, a.k.a. the systematic destruction of the California economy by government imposed starvation.  It was also the day Dr Fausti was forced to talk himself into an ever tightening circle while testifying in front of Congress (here).  He was asked, by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), "Do protests increase the spread of the virus?"  Dr Fausti danced around the issue slightly by giving a more general answer of "Crowding together, particularly when you are not wearing a mask, contributes to the spread of the virus." As the congressman continued to prod the Doctor, he steadfastly refused to say the only scientifically honest answer to the original question, "Yes."  The weasel in Dr. Fausti, repeatedly refused to opine on whether the protests, as a specific example of "Crowding together", must have "contribute[d] to the spread of the virus".  This, despite the fact that  anyone with more than a few dozen active brain cells could easily see that there was absolutely no reason to not admit it.

The Conclusion:

When even Dr Fausti, if only inadvertently, admits that the protests must have contributed to the spread, we have clear and unassailable evidence that to intentionally ignore such events when a health officer (or their representative) is doing 'contact tracing' is a 'dereliction of their duty' (as described in my last post).  So, where are the charges of Malfeasance?  Why are they still being allowed to fill those positions?  Why hasn't anyone, other my lone voice, cried out for them to held accountable for their actions?

My Interpretation of Those Crying Out to 'Follow the Science':

We all know the answers to the above questions.  It isn't politically correct to suggest that those on the left are ever wrong.  If you do it will 'trigger' them.  They will 'cancel' you.  The media will descend and tear you apart like the ravening beasts are are.  Consequently, no one dares to challenge anyone in regards to their cloistered, safe-space, participation-trophy, snowflake existence.  This even though that group continuously call for us all to 'follow the science'.  Indeed, our Goober uses that phrase, but, as I have repeatedly demonstrated, has not in any way actually followed it.

Sadly, I have had to conclude that reality has no place in today's media or politics.   And it's not looking so good for tomorrow either.

Goober Newsom Looks More and More Like Just A Petty Tyrant

Statement for the record:

So there is no mistaking my intent, everything that follows is based on San Diego County, and may
or  may not be applicable to other locations in the state or country.

Bottom Line Up Front:

So here we are, three weeks into our Goober's lastest lockdown of San Diego, and the result is...

He deserves to be recalled.  Seriously, that's the kindest thing I can say.  Words like "tar and feathering" do come to mind, but I will try to stay reasonable and civilized (not that his side of the political spectrum worries about that).  His lockdown has accomplished what he really wanted.  Namely the economy is once again jerking spasmodically to a halt as more and more business close their doors forever and unemployment claims are again on the rise.  His actions are understandable from that point of view, but not from any other, and particularly not from the viewpoint of a sensible review of the data.  Now let me defend those statements.

Short review: 

I originally claimed (here) that the Goober was using metrics defined in terms of the original beliefs about the data, which are simply not relevant to today due to improvements in our understanding of the data.  I then joined our Goober in doubling down (here).  He insisted that we needed to further choke our businesses, while I insisted that that was somewhere between insane and criminal (oh, and I used the word 'malfeasance' in one context and I will further support that claim).

Update:

After one week I reported the score as "Goober: 0, Me: 1".  I've now got two more weeks in and I can say the score is now Goober: 0, Me: 3.  I can also add this new score as well San Diego County Health Officer: 0, Me: 1 (maybe 2).  So far it really hasn't been a close contest.  But let's look beyond the standings to see the box score, to show just how badly they've done.

So far my predictions (which are based on my admittedly ad hoc method to predict the deaths) were that the deaths would not see a major rise, and would remain well below the amount the Goober had shown himself to be willing to tolerate - due entirely to the case rise being of a completely different demographic distribution than the original case distribution.  That number is around 7 / week / 100,000 population, which is about 234 / week for San Diego County.  I will freely admit that I think that is bigger than I would want to tolerate, I'd be seriously concerned if we topped 150 / week, and would think some initial actions might be appropriate once you reach 120 / week (or about 1/2 his number).  However, my predictions for the total deaths for the weeks ending July 11, 18, and 25 were 66, 61, and 62, respectively (just under 2 / 100,000).  These are comfortably below the point where I'd start to worry (about 1/2 my point of concern).  In fact, the actual death totals were 35, 56, and 55.  Even smaller than I'd predicted, and way less than the kind of numbers that should cause our Goober to push for re-closing the re-opened business.

I also complained about our County Health Officer (and everybody else) intentionally failing to ask during their contact tracing if the new cases had attended any of the 'protests', which were so vigorously defended by our Goober as protected free speach under the First Amendment.  I don't see that the Health Officers and contact tracers had the authority to not ask about attendance at such events.  I did a little web surfing and found this quote (which comes from the California Code, Health and Safety Code - HSC § 120175)

Each health officer knowing or having reason to believe that any case of the diseases made reportable by regulation of the department, or any other contagious, infectious or communicable disease exists, or has recently existed, within the territory under his or her jurisdiction, shall take measures as may be necessary to prevent the spread of the disease or occurrence of additional cases.

That seems very clear to me.  Now what is Malfeasance?  Here the first web search led me to this definition

Intentional conduct that is wrongful or unlawful, especially by officials or public employees. Malfeasance is at a higher level of wrongdoing than nonfeasance (failure to act where there was a duty to act) or misfeasance (conduct that is lawful but inappropriate).

Having intentionally not asked about attendance at the 'protests' is, as I read it, a clear intentional failure to do their official duty.  I further claim that as that intentional failure then led to them being unable to properly determine the source of the spread, and thereby allowed our Goober to order the re-closings, which then resulted in harm to San Diego County residents and businesses.  Hence, I claim it is a clear act of malfeasance.  Further, our County Health Officer has recently begun to include in their briefings, on the plot of daily new cases, an annotation showing the dates for the incubation period for bars and restaurants re-openings.  While I concede that they have shown this in technically accurate manner, it is also in what must be considered an intentionally misleading one in at least two ways.  First, it shows the incubation period for the initial reopening, but does not extend the incubation period for the entire time from when the restaurants and bars were reopened until the Goober re-closed them.  Secondly, it does not show the relevant incubation periods for the various protests.

I have reproduced my plot from the last post in Figure 1, but have made the change that the data are now 1 week averages, with the average assigned to the last day of the one week period. I also colored two points red, just to make orientation easy.  These two points are June 12 and July 4.  The other schematic lines are explained below.

Figure 1.  Plot of the 7 day running average of new cases for San Diego County along with schematic representations of the two cases.  Case 1 in green, Case 2 in yellow, see text for full descriptions of the two cases.  The two red points are for the dates July 4 and July 12 and are colored differently only to allow easier identification of various time periods. 

I can predict what should happen to such a plot based on the modeling experience I gained earlier.  Increased spread will not be seen in the case data for something like 7-14 days.  This is due to the increase having an induction period where the cases spread and then re-spread, this is then further delayed by the time lag inherent in diagnosing the cases, and finally another apparent delay due to the averaging reducing the response of the curve.  This very slow grow will be followed by a period of essentially exponential growth, which will then eventually roll over (typically showing the same kind of lag as the increase did).  We shall now consider in the two most likely cases.

Case 1: If the case rise is primarily due to the reopening of the restaurants and bars, the initial rise would be first visible some where around 7-14 days after the initial re-openings, which occurred May 21, so somewhere in the May 28-June 4 time period, maybe slightly later.  This would be followed by an essentially exponential period which would have no reason to roll over until the interaction was reduced (re-closing happened July 7).  The reduction would first be visible after a lag of over a week (for the same reasons we see the increases lag).  This means the rollover would only have started about the 14th (maybe slightly later), and be pretty flat starting about now.  This profile does not match the observed data.

Case 2: If the case rise is primarily due to the 'protests' (which occurred primarily from about May 29 - June 13, with a few smaller ones about a week later), then we'd expect to see an initial rise starting in the June 5-12 time frame, really picking up for a week or two, but then rapidly flattening due to the interaction being reduced to the previous level, but with a higher case number (and a concomitantly larger new case rate), which would appear as a flat zone starting around July 4. This is almost exactly what is observed in the data.

Anyways, like I said earlier, San Diego County Health Officer: 0, Me: 1.

Further Considerations For Predicting the Expected Deaths:

I could write many many pages about what I've done with the data I now have (three weeks of day by day deaths, broken down into age groups of 10 years, and almost five months of daily new case data broken down the same way).  I will not inflict that on you dear reader.  Instead I will simply state the best way I found to predict the deaths is to use each age group separately and for each of these to use the new cases over one week, to predict the deaths in the next week.  The current best fits are by using the death rates as given in Table 1.  I will note that using older case numbers like 2 or 3 weeks  previous work OK, but not quite as well.  If, however, you try to use the aggregate cases, without regard to the age grouping, the predictions are essentially worthless.

If I go back in time to the beginning of my tirades, and re-predict the deaths you get the data shown in Table 2.  These are clearly better results than my original ad hoc predictions, but the actual conclusions are completely unaffected, and the score remains Goober: 0, Me: 3, with my next prediction being that one week from today we will have seen 53 new deaths in San Diego County, and the Goober's re-closing will be further shown to be an exercise in over-reach.  The only possible conclusions are that the Goober is a complete idiot (which I don't really believe) or that he is happy to shut the economy down for no good reason, other than the political gain he believes he will have.
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Table 1.  Best fits for death rates for each age group using cases from the weeks ending 6/27, 7/04, 7/11, and 7/18/2020 to predict the deaths for the weeks ending  7/04, 7/11, 7/18, and 7/25, respectively.  *- There have been exactly 0 deaths for these time periods for these groups, even though there have been 3 and 4 deaths total for these two age groups over the entire CoViD-19 outbreak.

Age group	Death rate
0-10	0
10-20	0
20-30	0*
30-40	0*
40-50	0.0055
50-60	0.0138
60-70	0.0444
70-80	0.117
80+	0.269

Table 2.  Predictions, both the previous ad hoc ones and the new ones based on better analysis,and the observed deaths. 

Week Ending	Old Prediction	New Prediction	Observed
7/04/2020	33	54	27
7/11/2020	66	49	35
7/18/2020	61	50	56
7/25/2020	62	51	55
8/01/2020	-	53	??